


MarcAce Week: Immortal

by KabochaKitsune



Series: MarcAce Week 2019 [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Akuma no Mi | Devil Fruit, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, M/M, MarcoAce Week, MarcoAce Week 2019, Phoenixes, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Marineford, Reincarnation, Zoan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 01:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21236264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KabochaKitsune/pseuds/KabochaKitsune
Summary: Ace had gone from his life. Ace, in one form or another, had gone from his life too many times. Marco didn't remember how old he was anymore. The answers he gave were either "twenty-six," the last time he'd shown any sign of age change, or "old," which said enough.He better remembered all of Ace's names.





	MarcAce Week: Immortal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gayfishface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gayfishface/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Immortal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21668731) by [Gayfishface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gayfishface/pseuds/Gayfishface). 

> Based on something Gayfishface wrote for me a while back, starting with:
> 
> _Phoenixes are immortal. And phoenixes mate for life._
> 
> **Update:** Gayfishface posted his work up! I've linked it up, please go read it!  

> 
> For [MarcoAce Week 2019](https://marcoaceweek.tumblr.com/post/188059063077&). 29th October (Day 5): Strangers / Ghosts.

Ace had gone from his life.

Ace, in one form or another, had gone from his life too many times.

Marco didn't remember how old he was anymore. Could do the math if he needed to, remembered the date of the Paramount War better than his own name, much less his own birth year. The answers he gave when it didn't matter as much were either "twenty-six," the last time he'd shown any sign of age change, or "old," which said enough.

He better remembered all of Ace's names.

Aaron, who'd challenged Straw Hat Luffy himself and been "press-ganged" into the mad crew when he'd inevitably lost. The same spirit and spitfire, the same kindness and fury. One of many who'd died in the final War against the World Government and their weapon, the name of which had been wiped away by the Marine Government and the Pirate Code in tandem, and which Marco didn't care to remember anyway.

Anna, the furious girl fleeing genocide with a scattering of her people from a distant island in the Calm Belt, come to Sphinx for asylum. Anna who had melted into his arms the first time she saw him, knowing his name without being told, who he'd loved for decades until time took her away.

Adon, a beast tamer with a wandering circus, who'd sought out the hateful Blood Phoenix when Marco had forgotten himself and his name and his meaning in his rage at his loss of Anna - of Ace. He'd taken everything out on every whisper of World Government reawakenings, gone beyond scope and burned everything in his path until he couldn't stand himself, and hidden himself away in a deep cave in an island in nowhere. Until the boy found him, woke him. Retaught him to speak and to live and to love in the three short, precious years until the disease even Marco couldn't cure had taken his young life.

Alice, the reporter he'd met on Baterilla, both of them come to find the source of the fireballs lighting up the night sky - another phoenix, manifest when the Zoan Fruit regenerated on the hundredth year after Marco had first eaten his - who had no sense of personal safety and did anything for a story and who gave him and the other phoenix - _Edward_, of all names - heart attack after heart attack until she was lost to the sea, a saltwater storm the only place where neither of them could protect her.

Alois, a grandchild of the cook who'd cast off the Vinsmoke name, a cook himself, hair up in the second-most ridiculous pompadour Marco had ever seen when he'd first met him, taken one look at him, and cried into his neck. Edward had cried with him, without quite knowing why. Alois' food was the best Marco had ever tasted. He, too, lived a long life - longer than natural, with Marco and Edward together keeping him at the peak of health until his body succumbed to slumber at a hundred and fifty-nine years.

Arthur, who'd gut you if you called him _Artie_, and who danced so beautifully and skillfully with a pair of scimitars that he could make good on that threat with anyone, who Marco and Edward found looting and informing on casinos rumored to be run by underground sympathizers to the old Government. They'd joined him, helped him for two decades, until the entire movement was routed, until Arthur fell to a single bullet from the last don still holding ground.

Amelia. Amelia was the most like Ace and looked the most like Rouge, absolutely untameable, a mercenary doctor who never accepted money over food. She'd refused to marry Marco, to even court him, but they remained fast friends, moving from island to island, helping anyone who couldn't help themselves. And after three decades, after he'd long accepted that it would never happen, she kissed him. They were inseparable, heartsweet - still _friends_. They never undressed each other. Never made love. Never married. Marco was happy to just kiss her and hold her hand, to spend another lifetime with her, to love her until an illness they'd eradicated from an entire island caught up to her but not to either phoenix.

Roronoa Akiko was the biggest surprise and the most vicious. She was the first one who didn't freckle. But that didn't change her complexion, really: her whole left side was covered in speckles anyway, flecks of scar tissue from shielding her little brother when a pot of oil fell off the kitchen stove. She was the first one to tame him, settle him completely, because she was the first whose idea of _adventure_ was staying put. Was tutoring generation after generation of young boys and girls in the way of the sword at Isshin Dojo. She wouldn't move so much as a mile outside her home. And her presence was worth more to Marco than all the salt of the sea. He learned to sew for her, cooked with Alois' recipes for her, so she could spend all of her time with a blade in her hand. Held himself back, tears pouring down his face, as she fell in a fair duel to a young girl with violet hair wanting to challenge the descendant of Straw Hat Luffy's first mate.

Akiko's headstone had been erected in the same cemetery as Zoro's - as Kuina's and Koshiro's, he remembered the names - nineteen years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days ago.

He still didn't know how old he was.

Edward had found him a few years after Akiko's death. Phoenix Fruit in hand.

Marco had torn at him with talons for hours for daring to come to him after Akiko had gone.

Edward hadn't fought him. Just held him, kept all of Marco's rage on himself, healing from each gouge and slice and bite, until Marco wore himself out, collapsed on Edward sobbing and heaving and shivering with the cold wet of Edward's blood soaking his clothes.

Marco had called him "Pops" during his sobbing.

Edward hadn't questioned it.

Marco had been ashamed of himself for not seeing it sooner, not with his vision tunneled down to _Ace, Ace, always Ace_. Pops had given him a knock on the head for his trouble.

It was New Year's Eve, and Pops had finally convinced Marco to come out and celebrate the occasion. He wouldn't ever meet Ace again, Pops had needled, if he kept avoiding the boy's original birthday, treating it like a funeral instead of a celebration. Marco had told him that was a little dramatic, wasn't it? He hadn't met Ace, or any of the others, on the New Year.

"No," Pops answered. "But all of them have gotten you to celebrate while you were with them, haven't they?"

Marco had given Pops toothless shit about his age again.

But here he was, finally out in kimono and geta without _Ace_ for the first time in... whatever. However many years, decades. Centuries.

Pops knew he'd tucked the Fruit into the sleeve of his yukata. Marco didn't care about being subtle with the (young) old man anymore.

He ordered a whole round of sake. The bartender raised an eyebrow at him, more curious than anything.

"You expecting friends?"

"Sort of."

Maybe it was a little sad, watching the fireworks burst in the run up to midnight alone, seated on the rail of the inn's porch, ten cups spread along the wood beside him. He poured each one full, set the bottle down, and waited for the blue and red bursts of sparks to light up the form of a rooster in the sky. Midnight. He picked up his own cup, clinked softly against the next nine in turn, and threw his back as though the ochoko was a shot.

"So, who died?"

Marco choked, coughing and whirling in place to glare at whomever had said that right in his ear, he was going to kill the bastard for that -

\- and as he made eye contact, as time slowed down around him, he heard little clinks of stoneware against the wood of the porch, knew that his own sleeve with the momentum of the Fruit inside it had whirled with him and knocked all nine cups from the railing and into disarray, and contemplated somewhere in his periphery that he would have killed anyone else for that, too.

But he wasn't going to kill this boy.

This brunet, peppered with freckles, wearing the cheekiest grin he'd seen in decades. _In centuries._

He was bare-chested, wearing no New Year's finery, only the lowest-riding shorts Marco thought he'd ever seen, heavy boots, and a goddamn hatstring at his throat.

"...Ace?"

"Would you believe that's actually my given name this time?"

Marco hauled him close by that stupid hat string and his stupid hat and grabbed his face in a kiss before bothering to say anything else.

Ace surged against him like they'd never parted, the same, _the same_, so many times gone but the same the same _the same_.

Only when the boy's breathing became labored did Marco pull away from his mouth, only to kiss up his jaw all the way to pull at his ear with teeth, the little nip that Ace always teased him was like an affectionate bird, and Ace laughed all over again.

"Hey, Marco?"

Marco refused to take his arms away, to let go for even a moment. "Yeah?" he whispered into that same ear.

"Where's my birthday present?"

Marco blinked. Sat up, finally, arms on Ace's shoulders, brows pinched in a way that could only mean _you're kidding?_

Ace's grin was bright and shit-eating as ever.

"Twenty."

"Fuck," Marco murmured, digging in his sleeve.

Ace took Marco's whole hand and the fruit with it as soon as both emerged, hand cupping the back of the other's, and brought the fruit to his lips, taking a bite before anything or anyone could stop them.

Marco's eyes were wide, breath caught, fear and hope thundering in his chest.

Ace made a face and stuck out his tongue, bits of fruit still stuck to it. "Blehhh. Really is as bad as everyone says."

Marco laughed and hauled him back in by the ear.

"Ow ow ow _hey_ just 'cause I'll grow it back if you rip it off - !"

"Shut up," Marco murmured, and lifted Ace onto the railing with him. He was going to celebrate the rest of tonight and every day of the remainder of eternity with this boy, and he wasn't going to waste a second.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaron, Anna, and Adon are from Gayfishface's brain. Pops' phoenix reincarnation was Ace's in his work; I added Alice and AUed from there.
> 
> ty for always throwing me excellence, bb ♡
> 
> Want to support what I do? Find me on other sites through my [carrd](https://kabochakitsune.carrd.co/)!


End file.
